


the final performance

by cosmicpoet



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Character Study, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-22
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2019-02-05 09:16:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12791457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicpoet/pseuds/cosmicpoet
Summary: Kaede doesn't want people to know that she doesn't trust them as much as she lets on. With Shuichi, she feels the desperate need to be honest, but her honesty could put everything in jeopardy. So she stays silent, and acts like she's not in the beautifully heartbreaking process of falling in love.***CHAPTER ONE SPOILERS***





	the final performance

Everyone thinks that Kaede trusts _everyone._ But that’s a lie – as much as she’d never admit it, she’s selective with who she places her trust in. Leading them all to try and escape together wasn’t a display of unrelenting trust in others, but rather, her trust in herself that she could get them to believe in her, and in each other, also. The thing is, not trusting people blindly doesn’t mean _hating_ them, it just means being a little reserved whilst liking them all the same. And she truly, truly wants everyone to survive. She wants to survive with them, of course, but that’s secondary. That’s why she’s putting her life on the line.

Ironically, she’s trusting that they’ll trust her judgement in killing the mastermind, and still want to leave with her.

But then there’s Shuichi – a completely different conundrum for her to figure out. He’s not like anything she’s ever known; he doesn’t have self-confidence, but he’s wildly intuitive; he doesn’t particularly find himself drawn to others, and yet she is inexplicably drawn to him.

This, Kaede reasons, must be blind trust – _and she doesn’t mind it._ It’s a strange feeling, but she knows that, in a killing game, alone in a room with a person she’s known for a few days, she has nothing to fear. Logically, he could kill her so easily, right here and now, and save his own life, or at least the lives of everyone else, like she herself is trying to do. But he doesn’t, and Kaede somehow knows that the thought has never even crossed his mind.

 _“Shuichi Saihara,”_ she thinks, _“is far too good to be in a place like this.”_

He’s nervous, naturally, because their plan to catch _(or kill, in her case)_ the mastermind is approaching fast its climax. His hand is shaking on the desk, and he tries to steady himself, but his whole body seems to tremble with fearful anticipation. Everything is riding on his deductions, but Kaede has absolute faith in him.

“Hey, Shuichi,” she says, “you’re nervous, right? Me too. I’d be a total wreck if you weren’t here.”

“What if I’m –”

“Oh come on,” she laughs a little, not genuinely, but merely an attempt to lift his spirits, “don’t say you’re wrong. You’re the Ultimate Detective!”

“In training,” he corrects her.

“Well, whatever! I’m relying on you.”

She reaches for the brim of his hat and gently pushes it upwards; she knows that he doesn’t like looking people in the eyes, but with all the tension and terror in the air, she needs something human to hold onto. He doesn’t stare away, and although he blinks frequently, she doesn’t comment on it.

With faux-calmness, she tests the waters by brushing her hand against his. He doesn’t move away, or seem disgusted, so she goes a step further and links their fingers. There’s a shy sort of sweetness in Shuichi’s blush when she does this, and she returns his smile with all the warmth she has in her heart. In another world, another life, another situation, perhaps they could have loved each other; in a life after this, when the mastermind dies and, by some miracle, Shuichi isn’t repulsed by her being a murderer, Kaede could let herself fall in love.

“Kaede, I…” Shuichi trails off, losing his sentence to the thin whispers of air around them. She’s too scared to ask what he wanted to say. Instead, she just holds his hand tighter and tries to remember how to breathe again. If he asks, she can blame her nerves on the plan, but she knows that there’s something else there, now, something quite like intimacy. She’s thinking of piano music in her head, of how her chest feels like something beautiful and naïve is growing within her, and she doesn’t ever want to stop it.

 _“Just like Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2,”_ she thinks, _“I’d like to love him the way Chopin writes music; gently, branching off into forever.”_

With confidence matching Shuichi’s insecurity, Kaede leans towards him and gently kisses him. He gasps a little, but doesn’t visibly dislike it, either. When she pulls away, she smiles to see him turning pink in his cheeks, like cherry blossoms in spring and the music of Vivaldi.

But she can’t let herself enjoy this. As much as she wants to live forever in the eternity of loving Shuichi, she’s still got one foot into dangerous territory, and the next few moments are just waiting for the other one to progress there, too. It’s an ironic pair, a detective and a soon-to-be murderer, but Kaede just wants to remember, after it’s all over, what it was like whilst she was still innocent and he was still hopeful.

The receiver goes off, and Shuichi stumbles over himself running out of the room. Kaede is left alone.

 _“It’s better this way,”_ she thinks, _“we’re just destined to be on opposite sides of the game.”_

She holds the ball in her hands, feeling its weight and the magnitude of what this means for her. But she trusts in Shuichi, and she trusts in herself, and before she can do a thing about it, she’s let it fall into the vent.

Then, they’re investigating together, and he’s so viscerally angry at Rantaro’s murderer that Kaede can’t even think straight. She’s just hoping that, when he finds out, he’ll forgive her – but that’s too selfish a request. It would be easier on everyone if they just hated her. 

* * *

 

When Shuichi has to send Kaede to her death, he’s crying and she’s smiling. These people whom she struggled to let herself trust are trying to protect her, trying to fight for her, and all she can think about is how she brought all of this upon herself willingly. She’s trying to hold back tears, but she simply can’t let him watch her cry, watch her be _human._ Most of all, she can’t let him fall in love with her.

But he does anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed this! I wanted to write a slight character study on Kaede, and also something vaguely romantic. Leave a comment if you liked it, please, it'd mean a lot. And, as always, have an awesome day!


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